According to the New York Times article, as of August 16, this outbreak “has claimed 12 lives and sickened more than 120 people in the South Bronx” and is “the worst flare-up of the disease in the city’s history.” The towers are now being cleaned, which will hopefully stem the number of cases.

Legionella outbreaks are fairly common. Here are some past posts from microBEnet on these outbreaks:

4 thoughts on “Legionella on Cooling Towers”

The five cooling towers that initially tested positive have not as of yet been definitively identified as the source for the outbreak despite what the media and politicians would lead you to believe. As a microbiologist, you should know that (according to WCPF’s at the CDC) rarely do the strains isolated from those infected correlate w/ environmental isolates and w/o said correlation a finger can not be pointed at a probable definitive source.